


dreams and permanent summers

by nouiszouis



Series: Monthshots! [12]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Photographer Harry, mermaid louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:53:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1707185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nouiszouis/pseuds/nouiszouis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>louis is a mermaid, clueless to the world around him and only friends with a small fish. harry finds his lagoon one day and it's something like fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dreams and permanent summers

**Author's Note:**

> day 12 of the 'monthshots' series!!
> 
> i love mermaids a lot i think i'm either going to make this longer one day or write something else mermaid louis centered.
> 
> be lucky i didn't go with plan a and make this a sad story about louis lulling harry to his death.

It’s a typical day for Louis as he works his body and tail through the crystal clear, turquoise waters engulfing him. He’s exploring around his lagoon that he’s only claimed as his own because no other anatomically similar creatures live in the area other than him. There’s a few tropical fish and jellies that make their way throughout his territory, but other than them and the occasional dolphin, he’s all on his own and it’s not something he’s going to complain about. 

The sun’s shining brightly upon him, making his blue and green shaded tail glisten and gleam as it reflects the light. It feels like he should get sick of being in the lagoon and hop over the sandbank that leads to the greater body of water known as the ocean, but he never does. It’s enough for him to have his own private area and the ability to do whatever he wants without having to worry about any unknown creatures harming him or him getting lost in the deep waters.

He’s laying on his back with his hands thrown behind his head when he senses a disturbance in the normally peaceful atmosphere of the lagoon. The water is rippling like it does when a human boat gets too close.

Immediately he throws himself down into the water and swims quickly over to the rock wall to the left of the body of water. He goes straight into the cave carved into the wall and pops his head back up once he's inside, making sure that he’s completely hidden from view from anyone outside. 

He risks moving to the edge of the cave and looking out and he throws a hand over his mouth when he sees the small boat driven by one human making it’s way through the open end of the sand barrier and coming into his lagoon. 

“Oh no,” he whispers to himself, his voice not even loud enough to create an echo on the moistened cave walls.

Suddenly, a splash is made from beside him and he flicks his eyes down quickly, scared to see what it could be. It ends up being just a small flounder that seems to be as frightened as him. He gently smiles and places a hand down in the water to guide the fish underneath his tail, pulling it around to create a sort of safe place for the creature to reside until whatever is outside the cave moves somewhere else.

The sun’s rays are still shining down upon the water outside and it’s easy for Louis to notice when the ripples slowly fade away leaving the surface in a calm, flat state once again. He moves carefully as not to disturb the fish resting under his tail and he furrows his eyebrows in confusion when he spots the boat floating still in one spot and a human boy walking about the white sands of the shore.

“Little Flippy, what’s he doing?” Louis asks quietly, not even realizing the name he’s given the fish.

As if the flounder can hear him, it swims out from under Louis and stops just at the edge of the cave and starts swimming in a circle. Louis laughs softly and reaches down to pet at Little Flippy’s smooth scales, admiring the likeness of them to the one’s on his own body.

“I don’t know what he’s doing either,” Louis hums. “I think I'm gonna get closer. Stay here."

He pets the fish one last time before ducking back down deep into the water. It flows through his gills as he moves forward and gets closer to the shore, stopping behind the boat so that he stays hidden from the human.

His hand softly rubs over to side of the boat and he widens his eyes in awe at how smooth and shiny it is, like how a pearl looks when he's lucky enough to find one. His reflection shows on the side and he looks into it, softly laughing at the way it stretches and twists his face and features.

His tail must move when he laughs though and suddenly a voice calls out to him and he freezes in place.

"Hello? Is somebody here?" The boy on the shore asks.

His voice is deep yet sweet and it makes Louis want to get a closer view of him, but instead he panics and submerges himself once again and swims quickly back to the cave. He's certain the boy noticed him and if not, he definitely would have heard his tail swishing, but he doesn't take the chance of stopping to check.

Once Louis gets to the cave, he goes to the very back where it's expected to be dark except there's a large hole in the rock that leads straight down from the top, letting sunlight flood in as one large beam. It lights up a small amount of space but it's just large enough for Louis to pull himself onto a rock and softly watch his tail cut through the water.

This is his safe place and his home. He doesn’t have to do anything special to be entertained or amazed because in his eyes, the world is wonderful in itself. Watching the way the water shines as he makes it ripple makes a smile appear on his face, even if it’s only a slight and barely noticeable one.

That is, until Little Flippy swims over to him and nudges against his tail repeatedly. He looks down in confusion, trying to understand what’s going on when a voice from right outside the rock startles him.

“Helloo,” the deep voice from before says again and Louis softly mumbles nonsense to himself.

As quickly as possible, he dives down into the quite shallow water and presses himself to the very back wall, trying to get as in the dark as possible as to not be seen by the boy. Only the top of his head is sticking up, just enough for him to see. Water rushes in and out of his gills as he holds himself underwater and tries to stay as still and quiet as possible.

Eventually, the boy comes into view, peering his head into the cave and then the rest of his body. He’s got something held in his hands that Louis’s never seen before and it frightens him because he doesn’t know if it’s harmless or an object that could be used to harm him.

Of course the boy’s eyes are immediately drawn to the back where the light floods in, but surprisingly his eyes never notice Louis. It seems that he’s far enough back and hidden to be in the safe zone which is a great relief. 

Louis almost goes to pop his head back up but then the human starts moving into the cave and this is _not_ good, not at all. The flounder is beside Louis, softly nibbling at his fingers, but he doesn’t mind because he thinks that if it’s calming the little fish then he shouldn’t bother stopping it.

“This is beautiful,” the boy breathes out to himself as he nears where Louis’ tail ends and the sunlight beams down.

Louis takes this moment to look at the human, never having seen more than a handful in his life. He’s got curly brunette hair, sparkling green eyes, images on his arms that Louis doesn’t understand, and _legs_. Louis wishes he had legs sometimes, but then he remembers all the amazing things he can do with his tail and smiles to himself.

Then, as if there’s a miniature thunderstorm in the small space, a light goes off and Louis ducks down, covering his whole head in clear water. It looked like lightening and that’s one of Louis’ greatest fears because it doesn’t look happy and it always occurs when a bad storm is coming in.

It takes about five seconds for Louis to realize that he shouldn’t have reacted. He’s sitting calmly, waiting for the mini lightning to go away when something touches his tail and he whips it upwards as a safety defense to stop whatever’s touching him from going any further. There’s a loud distorted sound that Louis can hear even under the surface so he pops his head up the same amount as before only to catch sight of the curly-haired boy holding his chin.

The boy is hissing and rubbing at it, and then he turns his head to the side and meets Louis’ gaze and freezes. Well, he freezes for just a short moment until he screams and backs away, stumbling backwards and causing large splashes to echo in the cave.

“Who are you?” He asks in a panicked tone, like Louis is just as scary to him as he is to Louis.

Louis doesn’t reply and instead slowly curls his tail inwards and shifts position slightly to tuck it beside himself. He does raise his head up higher though and he looks back into the boy’s wide eyes with caution.

“What-” the boy starts and then cuts himself off.

Louis easily notices his eyes roam to the side of Louis’ head and Louis immediately raises his hand up to move his hair down in self consciousness. The tips of his ears are pointed and webbed like ducks’ feet and they’re also colored the same as his tail, so they’re quite the signals that Louis isn’t fully human. 

The boy stands still and raises the object in his hands up slowly, holding it with shaky hands before pressing a finger down on the top. As soon as his finger presses down, the light from before goes off and Louis submerges himself again in fear. He doesn’t know what this boy is trying to do but he doesn’t like it and he really wants him to leave the cave now.

It’s only when there’s a murmuring noise coming from above Louis that he cautiously raises his head back up and stares at the human with fear in his eyes.

“I, uh, it’s a- Uh, I’m not going to hurt you,” the human says, fumbling over the words and stuttering.

Louis continues to stare before lowering his gaze down to the object and it seems that when he does that, the boy gets the message.

“This is just my camera,” he says slowly. “It takes pictures and the light goes off when something needs to be lit up to be seen better.”

“What’s a picture?” Louis asks quietly, carefully pulling himself out of the water for good and leaning back onto his sitting rock.

The boy looks shocked at Louis’ ability to speak but he snaps out of it soon enough and answers the question.

“It’s like- Ok I’m going to do this the best I can,” the boy says, laughing a little to himself even though he still seems a bit scared. He puts his hands out in front of him and creates a square with his fingers, centering it on Louis. “It’s like it freezes whatever you can see in the little square of your hands so that you can look back at it whenever and never forget the moment.”

“You want to remember the cave? And me?” Louis asks innocently, genuinely confused about the whole topic that they’re on about.

“Well, yeah. Who wouldn’t, I mean you’re a..” The boy’s voice slowly drifts away and Louis decides to fill in where he left off.

“Mermaid. Technically merman, yeah, but you know. It doesn’t really matter when you’re alone all the time anyways,” Louis shrugs. “What’s your name by the way, human?”

“Oh, I’m Harry,” the boy answers with a small smile played upon his very pink lips.

“Well, Harry, since I don’t think you’re going to try to kill me, could we talk outside? Like by the shore or something? I’m getting a little sun deprived,” Louis chuckles, throwing himself back into the water.

“Yeah, of course, I wasn’t meaning to disturb you or scare you at all, sorry,” Harry rambles out. “What’s your name though?”

“Louis!” He exclaims excitedly, swishing his tail around and trying to avoid hitting Harry.

“Nice name,” Harry compliments and Louis smiles brightly in return. “Lead the way I guess?”

Louis nods and buries himself beneath the layers of blue, guiding himself past Harry and back out to where the sun’s shining as bright as ever. He’s really relieved that Harry’s a completely harmless human, not one of the ones with the scary ships and fishing hooks. He’s has one too many run ins with them before.

The water rushes along his body as he swiftly maneuvers himself through the water and as close to the shore he can get while still being about three inches or so in the water. His tail is completely out for show and Louis moves the end around as he waits for Harry who’s still about mid distance away.

When Harry does finally get to the shore, he places his camera in the damp sand and then walks over to place himself down beside Louis. He’s instantly entranced by Louis’ tail; it’s obvious by the way he stares at it like it’s a diamond on display.

Louis looks over at Harry and when he does he gasps, causing Harry to snap his eyes up. There’s a large red mark just underneath Harry’s chin and Louis knows that it’s there because of him.

“I’m so sorry Harry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Louis apologizes quickly, reaching out to rub his hand over the mark and pulling away when Harry winces. “Do you need medicine for it? I have this stuff I make with seaweed and the insides of jellyfish that could probably help.”

Harry widens his eyes and shakes his head no. 

“No, I think I can make do without the medicine. And you were just scared and reacted which is completely understandable,” Harry says simply. “I’m glad I got hit in the face with your tail rather than an ugly brown and grey one or something like that.”

“You can touch it if you want,” Louis tells him, smiling gently and looking Harry in the eyes.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to, like, invade your personal space or anything,” Harry respond wearily. Louis just rolls his eyes.

“It’s _fine_. I’ll be sure to keep it totally still too so I don’t accidentally hurt you again,” Louis says and frowns remembering what he did earlier.

“Sounds good,” Harry laughs. “So can I just.. touch it?”

Louis doesn’t reply. Instead, he reaches down to grab Harry’s hand in his own and moves it down, placing it on the blue and green scales. He lets go once Harry’s hand is firmly placed and gently nudges him as if to give the ok for him to do whatever he’d like.

Harry moves his hand slowly and carefully, as not to harm Louis at all. He rubs softly up and down, feeling the scales and saying quiet noises of amazement under his breath. It’s nice having someone appreciate his tail and marvel at it because it’s really what makes Louis _Louis._

“It’s beautiful,” Harry marvels, looking over to Louis with a genuine smile.

“Thanks,” Louis says and simpers.

Harry looks back down at where his hand is resting and pulls his lip into his mouth for a second, biting down as if he’s in deep thought. “Can I take a picture of it? I won’t show anyone because I know if people found out about you they’d- Well, it’d just be bad probably.”

“Of course, and what would happen?” Louis asks in a small voice, scared to think of what Harry could be talking about.

“Well,” Harry sighs, “I’m certain that there’s some fucking crazy scientists out there that would more than likely trap you in some lab and poke things in you and it’d be pure torture. Because no humans think mermaids - or mermen in your case - really exist.”

“Humans do that?” Louis asks, horrified and nearly trembling. 

“Sadly,” Harry frowns. Then he stands up and walks back to where his camera is, grabs it, then sits back down where he was before. “My camera won’t flash this time, you shine bright enough.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis says, looking down and blushing.

He looks back up when Harry raises the camera and scoots in closer to his tail. There’s a moment of silence and then a click until Harry smiles down at the camera and raises it back up. This time he points it directly at Louis and before he can do anything to stop him, Harry presses the button down and the click sounds, telling that he already got the picture.

“Couldn’t help it,” Harry shrugs with a grin. “How else am I going to convince myself tomorrow that I actually met a merman and it wasn’t a dream?”

“You could always come back and see me again to prove that I’m real,” Louis suggests with a smirk to match Harry’s grin.

“I supposed I could if I _really_ wanted to,” Harry teases and they both smile at each other. “Your eyes are so blue, Louis.”

Louis raises his eyebrows and crosses his eyes in an attempt to see his own eye color, but it doesn’t work so he sighs. “I’ll take your word for it. Your hair is quite curly too. I’ve never seen curly hair before other than the times I sit out of the water too long and the tips of my hair curl a bit.”

“I’ll have to see that one day, but I will say your hair looks good as a wet mop too,” Harry says.

“I don’t know what a mop is but I don’t like being compared to a wet one, _Harry_ ,” Louis scolds with a fake pout. He flips his tail up and down a few times, scooping water up and cackling as he throws it directly onto Harry.

“Heyy,” Harry frowns, scrunching his nose up at the water that drips down his face from his hair. “That wasn’t nice. I thought you were a good mermaid. I guess the blue tail and cheesy smile are just throwing me off.”

“Excuse you, I am extremely nice,” Louis huffs. 

“Whatever you say, fish boy,” Harry teases with a grin.

Louis presses his eyebrows together and dives forward into the water, leaving Harry behind with a worried look on his face. He swims out to the middle of lagoon where the water is deep enough to be comfortable yet shallow enough for a human to stand in. When he pops his head up, he smiles and gestures an arm for Harry to come over with him.

Harry listens of course, setting his camera down and throwing his white shirt off before making his way out into the water. It takes long since he doesn’t have fins and it’s weird to Louis how humans can even swim with just small hands and feet working to push them through the water. It doesn’t seem possible, which is a little hypocritical coming from a mermaid who’s not thought to even exist.

“I thought you were mad,” Harry tells him when he’s close enough to hear.

“Nah, I am a fish boy so why would I get mad?” Louis laughs and Harry does the same, probably because he’s relieved that he didn’t upset Louis.

“Don’t know, just figured,” Harry says. “So why did you want to come out here?”

“Don’t know really. Guess I just wanted to see what was underneath your shirt since that’s only fair considering,” he pauses and gestures down to his own bare torso.

Then, as if by magic, an unfamiliar dinging noise starts coming from Harry’s boat and the curly haired boy reacts instantly, saying a word that Louis doesn’t recognize. 

“That’s my phone, my friend Niall is probably calling me,” he groans. “I wasn’t supposed to go out on the water today because I’m going with him to some concert, but I couldn’t resist and now we’re probably going to be late.”

“Oh, you have to go?” Louis asks dumbly because of course he has to leave at some point.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Harry frowns. “I completely forgot and everything, but I promise I’ll be back tomorrow if you’d want me to come?”

Louis nods his head and his face lightens up like he got hit with an abnormally large ray of light. “Yeah, I’d love that. I get lonely here and I still need to introduce you to Little Flippy.”

“Little Flippy?” Harry repeats, confused.

“It’s a flounder that got scared earlier when you came in with your boat. I kept him safe and I named him Little Flippy. He’s gonna be my friend I think.”

Harry stares at him oddly for a second as if Louis is insane, but then he seems to suddenly remember that Louis isn’t like any other normal person and he smiles genuinely.

“It’d be an honor to meet him,” he says courteously. 

“Him _or_ her, I still don’t know yet,” Louis corrects.

He watches as Harry glances back at the boat and then turns to look back at Louis, a disappointed look on his face. 

“I’ve seriously got to go now but I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?”

Louis makes a split second decision and before responding, he swims closer to Harry and pulls him in for a hug, wrapping his tail around his legs and holding on like a leach. Harry doesn’t resist though, and actually hugs Louis back, smiling into his shoulder so he doesn’t touch Louis’ gills on his neck.

“Bye, Harry,” Louis calls out when they finally pull apart and Harry starts swimming away and back over to his boat.

“Goodbye, Louis,” he responds with a smile that’s wide enough to see from the other side of the ocean, Louis thinks.

Harry turns around and continues on his way, collecting his items and holding them in his arms as he climbs the ladder to get back into the boat. He starts moving forward and just as Louis goes to lay back in the water, he hears his name being called.

“I’ll bring you something special tomorrow!” Harry yells out from the other side of the lagoon where the open end of the sand barge is.

“It better be shiny!” Louis calls out just as loud, hoping his voice carries enough for Harry to hear him.

It seems like he does though because he raises his thumb up and the air and then waves one final time as he finally takes off through the deep, dark waters. Louis just throws himself down into the water and screams for a second and then pulls himself back up into a laying position on his back.

“I made a friend today,” he says proudly to himself as the sun shines down on his tail and tan torso.

-

The next day, Harry does come back with a special present. It’s a weird, multi-colored food that’s shaped like fish and feels squishy in Louis’ mouth when he bites into one of the pieces. They’re good though, and they finish off the whole bag in no time.

“I got you them because you’re a mermaid and I know you don’t eat fish, but you like them, right?” Harry explains as they sit on the sand together.

“Such a stereotype, but it’s true,” Louis nods. “That reminds me; Little Flippy, come here!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked this!! please comment and leave kudos, it means a lot!
> 
> if you want to talk to me im strong on ao3, @daddyhair on twitter, and louwie on tumblr.


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